Chris Milinazzo – Mr. Super Buff…
Chris at HardRock (Ripped)
Chris is an ol military buddy of mine.. in the early 90′s we’d work out from time to time.. He’s always been very knowledgeable on many topics and weights and exercise are an expertise of his.
Here is Chris’s response to my slight mention of him on a post….
Hey Ron,
If I knew you where going to post this I would have put some more time into it. Here is some more background info on my quest for CUTZZZZZZZ!
Yea, I pretty much didn’t workout or do anything other than ride a keyboard for the better part of 8-9 years. Pretty soon I was turning 35 and I was like man you better get moving and get back in shape… I was up to about 258Lbs when I had this revelation and my pant size was 38 and these where getting too tight, ok they barely fit with my gut hanging over the belt and these pants where probably stretched over time cause new 38′s would not fit. DAMN YOU TACO BELL! I was like screw this you are not buying size 40 pants, you lazy fat boy.
So, when I got back in the gym on my quest for youth and Adonis like muscles and I went back into my old routine. After a year and many injuries and basically over-training I said “shit man you are not 18″, why are you training like this. When you are young (under 25), you have more hormones and can make gains and burn fat even when you train like a meat head. When you are older and naturally training (i.e. without steroids and growth hormones) you may not recover and you end up catabolizing the muscle for energy. Also, I was working out WAY too long, once you get over and hour or more of lifting you again can start chewing up your muscle and when you hit and hour and a half your stress hormones like cortisol kick in and this chews up muscle and makes you fat. Working out to get fat, now that was dumb.
So, I took a step back and did some research on training. The first thing you look at is the bodybuilding magazines, right? But these guys are all juiced up and they live to train, I didn’t want to live in the gym. Also, these guys are competing with one another; why in the hell would they post their real workouts for all to read? This would be dumb. Plus everyone knows they do cycles of mass building (bulking) and then they cut down for competitions. So where in these articles do they talk about these two different regimens? How much cardio do these guys do? What about their diets? How much do they sleep and rest. No, just do these exercises and buy the protein shake on the opposite page and you can be like me… BULLSHIT!
I sat back and thought about what I was doing and did some self experimentation. When it comes down to it I’m pretty lazy, so I try and work smarter not harder. Basically, this is what I did:
I took my old workout and dropped the weights down about 30%. I compressed the time between sets to 1-2 minutes for smaller muscles groups and for larger ones I use about a 2-3 minute break. I always keep my eye on the clock, when an hour hits I should be done with the weights. Also, I don’t sit on my ass between sets, I walk around and catch my breath also burning a few calories here and their. Another good trick to burn calories is to do exercises standing rather than seated, you burn more fat standing using your legs to hold yourself steady rather than letting the bench or seat do it. I added 10 minutes of stretching to my pre workout warm up. Also, instead of saving myself for the big weights at the end of my sets I go to failure for each set after my warm-up set. I am never going to be a power lifter so why lift all these super heavy weights, most power lifters look like shit anyways. I want to look good on the beach, plus their aren’t any weights on stage at a bodybuilding contest because no one cares how much they can bench press or deadlift it is about looks and aesthetics.
I included super sets for larger muscle groups, to compress one exercise into 10 to 15 minutes instead of 30 minutes like I used to. Most importantly I slowed my repetitions down by a factor of 2-3 times from what they used to be. This is what I like to call, burning some bacon of my F’ing ass. Using lower weights means less stress on joints and reduced chance of injury. Also, this gives a wicked pump, which means more blood moving which in turn means more oxygen used and more fat burning. I too have crap knees and gout. Although, I’m on Gout meds now and my knees are feeling better, so my Cardio was little if any. I will add more Cardio for health reasons and for the bedroom. I shed 50lbs with very little if any cardio, with cardio I could have done it quicker. Working out like this I ripped more fat off me in 3 months than the previous year.
On top of this I revamped my food intake and try to live by the 90% rule. Remember Garbage in equal’s garbage out dude! So the goal is to stick to an eating plan at least 90% of the time; if you say I will never eat this or that again and starve yourself you will just end up pigging out like crazy later. If you know you can have something you want, you don’t seem to want it as badly. Most of my gut came from Beer and Piles of Red Meat; I loved steak I would eat 2-3 at a time. Now I try and eat 4 times the amount of veggies to my protein which is either eggs of chicken breast.
I do believe in supplementation, things like Creatine and Nitric Oxide are proven to help you add mass and burn fat, I use Cold Fusion Ex or NoXplode by BSN as a pre-work out drink. But they are not going to magically make you ripped, they are just one tool in the arsenal.
Here is another interesting fact, the best way to add a 1/2 inch to your prick is to lose 30Lbs of fat.
Chris
Chris at Hard Rock 2
